A complete version of this article can be found on FestivalSeekers.com.

Known primarily for its abundant natural gas, Medicine Hat also takes pride in their locally grown food, flavorful coffee and booming art scene. To showcase this lesser-known side of the community, Medicine Hat annually hosts the Savour the Southeast festival. This festival offers a variety of different foods, flavours and treats for young and old alike. This year it takes place from September 25th to October 1st.

Just an hour outside of Medicine Hat is Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, home to the highest point in Canada east of the Rocky Mountains. The park is full of over 400 camp sites, bike trails, hiking trails, lakes, rivers, hills and a thick wooded ecosystem found nowhere else in Canada. One of the few places in North America left untouched during the last Ice Age, some of the most dynamic and breathtaking views in Canada exist in this park. The park is open yearlong and offers a variety of winter activities, such as ice skating, sledding and cross-country skiing.

If this wasn't a travel blog, it would probably be a food blog. I love visiting restaurants, reviewing food and sharing my experience with others. I'm also very picky about food, so I won't say that good food is bad, or bad food is good.

That being said, I love to try new food. I don't always like it, but I love growing my culinary palate. While travelling the world I've had some strange food encounters, like raw horse (yum), ox tongue (yum), boiled eggplant (yum, unless you mistook it as a chocolate cupcake, in which case not yum) and, the one I am most known for, dog duck (very yum).

But, throughout all my travels, the one thing I've always wanted to try was bugs. By bugs I don't mean raw earthworms pulled from my parent's garden. Those are gross and have chunky dirt inside them and they don't taste very good. Instead, I mean prepared bugs. Bugs that have been fried or baked or turned into paste and put onto crackers. Think "Grasshopper and Strawberry Jam" bugs; that kind of thing.

For many of us in Saskatchewan, summer means it's time for an Alberta road trip. Although the endless stretches of prairie have their appeal, there is nothing quite like seeing the mountains rising over the horizon.

One challenge that comes with taking a summer road trip is the heat. Much like on this side of the border, it isn't uncommon for summer temperatures to get to the extreme. I know a few people who have had car problems in the heat, and my family is one of them. Nothing ruins a trip more than an unexpected visit to the mechanic.  

Thankfully, Alberta has a myriad of places to go swimming, kayaking, canoeing, paddle boarding or fishing. This not only gives your vehicle time to cool off, but also gives you a chance to escape the heat as well.